


Dust and Dark Green

by felicia_angel



Category: Original Work
Genre: Apocalypse, Dust Bowl, Food, Gen, Original Character(s), Original Fiction, attempting to describe the smell of an apple to someone who never smelled an apple, you try it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-02-10 12:32:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18660508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/felicia_angel/pseuds/felicia_angel
Summary: Joshua travels to the West, hoping for a new job and a place to see actual growing plant-life.





	Dust and Dark Green

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for a story-contest and it wasn't chosen, so I figure I'll pass it along here. Hope you all enjoy it.

 

Joshua looks up at after the last huge blast of wind, worried at the change in weather. Whenever the wind does that back at home, the walls of the plant always shake, and the sky grows black from the coming storms. Depending on how dangerous the reports were, he’d been one of those who’d gone up to cover up the tanks and other areas that helped grown some of the protein-base and others that were used to create smaller bars in case of flooding or storms. He glances around the truck he’s in, noticing others covering up their faces in preparation for the wind that might blow through the reinforced windows. Though the truck was not a newer model, it did still have some ways to deal with the wind if it turned too strong, or if the Dust blew too hard against the body.

The young man lets out a cough as the dust begins to kick up, pulling his scarf up to cover his nose and mouth, moving to get the old goggles he’d managed to get from his brother as a parting gift. He adjusts the old, worn cap he found at the start of his travels as the wind begins to rush again, shaking the truck and rattling the metal body. The way the wind is picking up, it’s likely he’ll lose it if he’d been outside. He lets out a silent huff as the wind dies down again, hearing something outside, getting him to briefly jump. Joshua is grateful for his goggles, allowing him to watch as they pull to a stop and the driver gets out. Others mutter and talk in the Duster English that he’s heard only brief snippets of, whenever he’d been inside and the local news managed to cut in, talking about the state, or another city that was covered over by dust. None of them had spoken to him, his coat and thick pants showing the number of his Processor. One of them had started doing something or other that had lots of extended words, which got many of the others to hit the man or tell him to quiet down.

He looks back outside, watching the driver remove a huge, strange thing that looks similar to the dry brush he sometimes had been tasked to clear out from near the boarded-up windows and sides, hoping to clear out that and the build-up of dust that came with it. Often, they weren’t as large as the ones he sees the driver pull out, his dark brown hat and dark blue handkerchief starting to get some of the lighter color of the dust as another gust of wind picks up. A few other Dusters look at him as he watches the procedure, one watching before asking, “Surprised he’s doing it and not the bot?”

Joshua frowns in confusion, shaking his head before saying, “No. It’s too dusty for a bot.” The mechanical wonders that often helped everything, that became so necessary after the few Wars, the famines, the Dust itself, had killed so many people and changed everything. He’s from the Processor numbered 131-16, from the area once known as the Midwest, now called the US Desert. He’d heard, during lessons about the history or on the days when the main networks ran information about the state of things. Joshua had been tasked with tending the above ground, the preparatory stages for being sent out of the Processors that couldn’t grow, after he’d become interested in the non-local news. His grandmother, before she’d been sent North when her health had failed, said she’d guessed such a thing would come.

“Our family had been here since the time before the Dust, had stayed even through the first Dust, the small one before World War Two and after the Stock Market crashed so horribly. None of us ever left, but that donor was obviously born to wanderers.”

His mother had not said much, and Joshua’s father, when he commented on it, had simply said that a little wandering was good for the Human race. It had been wanderers and dreamers that gave them the US, that had managed to get them through the worst years of the Dust, when the world seemed to be encircled by it, and it would serve Joshua well.

“It’s not wandering if you simply enjoy the questions,” his father had told him. He’d not said anything, though, when Joshua chose West, but had looked disappointed. East was safe, the way back to the roots of power and to other, older farmlands and valleys, so deep that Dust had not quite settled, but other, more dangerous things had. The West was untamed, unknown, and said to be a mix of calderas and oasis, of dangerous sin and strange technologies, though they hadn’t saved some parts of cities when the waters of the oceans began to rise.

Joshua sits back as the truck rumbles back on, heading over and down a road as Joshua pulled out his smart device, looking over it for news. Forecasters called for caution, with the threat of haboobs growing more and more for the night, threatening the areas along the 40-corridor. It’s worse further along, near the lesser American Desert in Arizona, and he’d heard that other areas were often under snow and ice, though they also had long stretches of forest that took over the towns to the North, when the larger glaciers didn’t. He sees a few others reading their own tablets and smaller smart-devices as the truck rumbles down the road. He’d been picked up and they were probably going to make it to Albuquerque by evening, and hopefully there would be a good area for them to rest.

Joshua shifts as he continues looking through the forecasts and his GPS, the maps making him frown as he examines it. Albuquerque is large, between two heavy mountain ranges and large swaths of trees and land that, while not quite transformed into Dust like other areas, are now diminished after multiple droughts, sudden storms that cascaded through various areas, creating more and more destruction with the erosion. The drought this year was projected to be not as bad as last year, but that just meant that when the rains came, so too would floods and masses of mud that would coat things worse than the dust did.

The truck rumbles to a halt a few minutes after, the doors opening before the back is opened. Joshua and the Dusters quickly pile out and over to a low-sitting house nearby, the outside stained almost the same color as the dust around it, various plants outside and looking dry and half-dead. He’s never seen things like that, though dry and dead grass did sometimes pop up outside of the Processor, and he’d seem other areas, where Dusters had gotten some soil to try to revitalize their farms or yards. A huge storm and rush of water always wiped it away.

“So, spy,” the man from before, who’d spoken with the overly dramatic pulls, getting many of the other Dusters to groan at him, “you think you’re going to find something interesting in Canan? Ain’t no more grapes here, they all died.”

“Oh, you shut up,” another person, a woman who was setting up some things further into the room, looking over at them as she glances at them. Her hair is white, making him wonder how old she is and remembering that many of the Dusters and those above ground allow people to live as long as possible, and some even do the Processing themselves, instead of sending them to the plant North. They tend to call that Processor ‘Soylant’, apparently based on some old movie he never watched. He watches some media, but he likes listening to stories. He might not always understand what’s going on, but sometimes the stories are interesting.

“Just shake yourself out, don’t bother the Processor with your Bible-thumping and out of context scriptures.” Silence comes up as they work to get out of their travel clothing as the small, larger cleaning bot works to gather up the dust and dirt on the floor and interior white walls. Dark eyes sweep over them before she says, “Anyone steals anything goes out, and good luck finding another spot to sleep that isn’t hit by the wind. You can have some of the MREs and bars. We have other stuff for taste, if you think it needs it. The soup is for us - ain’t enough for you all.” She glances over as a stomping sounds comes from further in the house. “You picked up quite the few here, dear. I didn’t think you’d get so many.”

The man took off his hat as he came into view, revealing the long string that went around his chin before the dark handkerchief also came off. The man is tanned from sun, his hair dark with the start of curls as he shrugs off his heavy jacket and puts it on a different hook, closer to the garage. The bot he’d brought with him to get payments for the ride and to update information quickly rolled through to it’s cleaning and recharge station, humming softly as it did.

“Bunch of Midwesterners travelin’ off to better grounds,” he muttered, looking at the group. “I’m more amazed there’s only one of the Processor kids among them.” Joshua frowned at being singled out, even though it was true he was the only one there, before the man seemed to notice the number. “So you’re from the ones that tend to teach before they send you out. Good. Won’t believe how many others come through with no idea what they’re getting into.”

Joshua could guess that was a problem, as there was no real unified way of teaching - not that he knew of. The way things went, with Google and all the other browsers still up and doing their best to teach or continue the lists, it had not taken long for the Processors, Dusters, and others to start learning different things, depending on what they needed to survive. Couple that with the Free States and Territories that came up, working to keep their own land and livelihood as the Dust and other natural disasters - or man-made ones - hit hard, there was only so much that still connected them besides the major networks along the Internet and the Cloud.

It was still considered the US, the United States, that he lived in. It was just a different type of Union than the one that it had been, back when the Dust started.

“So, what Caanan are you headin’ towards?” the one who’d spoken to him before, name who’d been introduced as Rob, asks as he gives Joshua a long look while they pick up older plates that feel almost brittle in his hands before taking up something that makes him frown in confusion. There were normal bars and packs of vitamins, as well as the brick Emarees in the packs, steaming in warm water. But nearby there were some odd, weird green and red…sauces, he supposes, that seemed to have odd little things in them. Joshua wonders if it’s something to make the bars or Emarees taste better, but forgoes it. He doesn’t know what it is, and while there’s some curiosity to it, he’s not quite hungry enough to try them out.

“I’m heading West. I was picked to leave the Processor, and had a choice. I chose West.”

“At least the boy can talk,” Antony, another guest nearby, muttered as the group sat, a few bowing their heads and one saying something before they all started to eat after an ‘amen’ before conversation picked up again. “Where are you going in the West? The Free States aren’t known for charity.”

“Funny, I thought that was what we were known for,” their host muttered as he came by with a bowl of something  white and globular, with a sickly greenish water around it, bits of black spots floating on the surface. Orange circles floated in it as well, with something that was a gray-pink color and appeared to be fibrous sticking up from the watery mixture in small clumps. Joshua guesses it’s the soup that the woman mentioned. The woman in question comes by with another bowl, filled up with weird things...like flat bread, or so he’s heard that it’s what flat bread looks like, parts of it thinner and sticking up like bubbles of hot tar, tanned and darker against the pale brown color. Only seeing it in movies makes it hard for Joshua to know if he’s describe it right or wrong, and while he’s seen the people then eat it, it makes him wish again for the comfort and familiarity of his home and the Processor. At least there, even if his curiosity got to him, he’d be reminded of the dangers of it.

“The point is that he’s headin’ West and into bad things. The waters fell back only a bit with the new Ice Age but that doesn’t stop it from still having areas full of worse Dust than here.”

“Well, it’s a better direction than East or North. If he’d been so silly as to choose _South_ we could call his thoughts into question,” another one of the Dusters, Amy, said as she finished up her own pack of vitamins. “Besides, it depends on how far West. You have a destination in mind?”

Joshua considers. He’d wanted to get to North-Central California, as he’d heard there were jobs in the area that paid well, and there was always the chance of heading further North from there to work in logging. The southern part of the state was either too swampy or had become an extension of the Great Death Valley, and he was hoping to avoid that. “I was going to try up near the Oroville Lake.”

He gets a few notes on where he’s going, Rob giving him looks that Joshua dislikes before he states, “You’re going to where the gardens are, ain’t ya? Don’t ya know we been kicked out again? We dared to eat from the Tree again, and for our sins we once more were put to toil.”

“I don’t need prosclitizin in my home,” the woman said as she walked by with the two empty bowls, “If you want to make up some nonsense about apples and the fall, you do that outside.”

Rob fell silent, and Joshua couldn’t help but wonder about what he’d been talking about, and what an apple was.

It doesn’t take as long as his GPS says to get to the Yuba-Sutter Valley, but Joshua counts himself lucky. He’d managed, when he got on the train heading up to Sacramento, to apply for an entry-level position that, as far as he could tell, was basically being bounced around the area to try to deal with various areas that had Dust. It’s not the worst of all jobs, but it at least gave him a good start and possible money. He did still have some from when he left the Processor, but it would only last him long enough for a few months.

The talk about the strange thing from last night, not to mention Rob’s continued insistence on saying that Joshua was going to ‘Caanan’ and ‘couldn’t be bothered to bring back fruit’ made him curious as to what he’d been talking about. His tablet brings up a note about New Evangelicalism, a type of offshoot of Evangelicalism that had started as a response to everything going on before the Second Dustbowl. They believed that mankind had somehow ‘gotten hold of the forbidden fruit’ - what that was changed between churches - and as a result, the whole world, the second Garden, was destroyed for their continued failure. Others said it was the sign of a Horseman, a sign of the Apocalypse, but after only a brief reading of it, Joshua closed that page in disgust. The start of the Dust, as it was known now after nearly fifty years of continual degradation and erosion, had been a combination of bad weather, drought, global warming, and a ton of bad luck. The Oroville Lake had been created when the weather in California had resulted in a sudden destruction of the original dam that held in the huge lake, and the continued snow melt and massive wall of water that had wiped out many areas, specifically areas full of food that was needed, and the resulting fights and actions had lead to the first Free States, and hints of the coming issues. Now, what had once been the 70-corridor was a mass of water and destroyed homes, swamps and land filled with the dead and the skeletons of ruined trees and destroyed homes.

When he reaches the meeting spot he’d been told to head to in the Sacramento Railroad, a small woman with dark hair and a bright smile waiving to him as he joined some of the others started to come in, many of them wearing similar jackets and carrying Processor items - at least once looked to be from 131-17, the Processor near him. There were a few Dusters as well, but in general, it was a small group. The Dust had taken out a great deal of the world’s growing area, and while some areas had been spared, they could not grow enough to keep up with the demand of those decades ago. Unrest had resulted in the US becoming what it was. It was still the US, but there were now more Free States, like California and the other areas to the West, and Free Territories or Reservations like the ones that still dotted the various states. 131-15 and -14 were both in Free Territories, and the people there could be anything from odd to…

Well, mostly odd. Still, the ones who were here were just as odd, but many of them seemed to view the energetic woman who handed out the pamphlets for where they were going and what they’d be doing as a bit odder than they were. They were heading to a place called Beale, a former base for the USAF before it had been pulled down and away, due to the need for the military money to go into other programs when some of the bases and expense became too big. The lack of supervision in some areas with old nuclear warheads had also caused irradiated areas, where even the Free Territories had avoided unless the need for whatever was left there became too great. After the destruction of Oroville Dam, Beale had been one of the places to house the displaced family, and when the Dust began to come to areas of it, the place had been turned over to the survivors as the military claimed only a few spots before ultimately leaving.  The whole thing, what was now Beale the town, spread out over a few miles worth of sand, trees, and yellow grass. The area he was in had been rooms for others, and had a central area for talking, with smaller rooms to each side. It held up to 8 people at once, and each room had a shared bath with your own bed and a curtain between. It takes an hour or so to reach it, and all the time, the only changes Joshua sees from the landscape he grew up in are the rails that transport various material goods, rushing through with only pauses for the bots and their Human handlers to check rails and areas for debris and flooding, and trees that grow and fan out, offering shade for others to relax under and offer up their wares.

“So, you’ll mostly be working farmland going in the surrounding areas and checking for signs of Dust,” the cheerful woman tells him with a smile, quickly typing something to send the information for him to read to his tablet. “It’s mostly mixing up and trying to get the soil back to optimal levels for planting. It can be tedious work, but if it’s done right, the rewards are definitely worth the work.” He returns her smile at that, heading inside and frowning at the smell in the main room. Joshua wrinkles his nose as he spots two others he hasn’t met yet, eating a strange, circular thing that made the air smell like a freshener had been unleashed. The circular thing broke into sections of orange-coloring, with strange brown shapes inside and white parts sticking to the outside, like a covering of strange spiderwebs. They give him a strange look as he retreats to his assigned room, grateful to see that so far, he’s the only one there. It allows him time to think, to read over the information, and to think on his new life.

Joshua groaned as he finished stirring the huge wheelbarrow full of soil and steer manure, coughing hard at the smell that came out as he was directed to where to put it. So far he’d been doing fairly well at the small bits of plants that he’d been taking care of, but that didn’t stop him from having to help in putting more soil to areas that needed it. He’d not quite been happy with earlier weather – rain had resulted in some areas of flooding, though not the same was as near the Processor, when rivers of mud and anything else uprooted would flow down and take away anyone who wasn’t quite ready or paying attention. Beale didn’t quite have the same problem, apparently, but there were still deep areas that had scars and dangerous areas with erosion. The other Processors had shown similar worries, and all of them had done what they could inside until the storm passed, then began their outside work.

“I told you that was a shit wheelbarrow,” the head Farmer, Daljeet, had stated as Joshua began to move it, the thing shifting unnaturally and creaking as he rolled it to the designated area. “You’ve got an eye for this, though.”

“I’m sure that would help me out, somehow,” Joshua muttered as he dumped over the mix, taking out the rake to spread the foul, dark dirt over the ground. “This probably isn’t going to work here.”

Daljeet snorted in agreement, adjusting the turban on his head and smiling through his dark beard. “Still, a try is a try, and anything to get the Dust to at least turn a bit or take seeds. If anything, the grass will help keep things from stirring up too much.”

Joshua works as much as he could before it was time for a break, drinking the Gatorade mix and eating down a protein bar. He watched Daljeet snacking on something else, but shook his head when offered some. It’s odd food that’s colored a bright yellow, with other strange food that looks very different form the bars he and most others eat. Daljeet and the others had explained it was common to eat a mix of bars and vitamins with whatever else you could get. Some of the food wasn’t always enough for what you needed, and Daljeet and the others often gave or offered up Joshua and the other Processors food. So far, only Joshua hadn’t demanded they stop, but he’d also never really had any.

He’s not sure why, but he’s just not quite found something he wanted to try. He supposes it’s because he’s not sure what to expect. He almost wants to find an apple to try, just to see what the big deal is.

“Joshua!” the young man groaned as the Asian man, Thuy, walked up, smiling as he held up a string of dead fish - he knew enough to know what they were but not the species - but Joshua never found himself happy to see the green-colored ones, silver long ones, and huge, whiskered, gaping ones that were said to have gotten over-abundant in the area from when the dam burst and dead were floating or sunk into the new rivers and lakes. It’s the smell, but also that some of them were used in the fertilizer he spread out.

“Hey, so, I noticed you’re taking that fish-oil crap again. I’m telling you, _real fish_ , it’s way better than--.”

“No.”

Thuy sighed, glancing at Daljeet and offering up a look as the farmer pointed to a few of the others. “A salmon? I didn’t think they were coming back.”

“I know, I didn’t either, but I found a good spot! I might need some help catching them,” he glance over at Joshua, who blinks at them in confusion. “You’re doing a great job and got a green thumb! Let’s see if you can fish too.”

“Even if I don’t like fish to eat?”

“Oh, who said that was a prerequisite? I know a few who go hunting and most of that is just to sell off the meat. Come on. It’s near a big orchard we should check out too. Might find some good seeds or something neat.”

“If it gets him to stop trying to sell me those _things,_ I just might,” Joshua muttered as he paused to take another drink. Whatever the orchard was or whatever it had, he’d have to see for himself. He’d not had to worry about much pushes, but more and more he did want to go and explore things, and this might actually be a good lead.

Joshua sighs as he looks around the orchard, doing his best to not call out and demand Thuy answer what he was thinking, bringing a Processor to not only _fish_ , but then to explore an overgrown orchard. The trees themselves look somewhat old, the area dark from overgrown branches, new trees growing over white bones of animals and humans, the heavy ground under his feet still full of many of the nutrients. He wonders if this was how his home once felt like, before the Dust. He briefly doubts that it will ever return to it, but forecasts and notes about works to reclaim the pockets of it still not fully Dust were good, but they were small and too localized to every bring things back fully.

Despite that, Joshua trekked through the orchard, having to move around thick brambles with bulbous, strange small black fruit on them and thick, sharp thorns. He glances around, briefly catching a glimpse of Thuy in the distance before he sees something else; further up and on a slight hill, up enough that Joshua finds himself curious if it survived the flood, or if he can see more of the orchard and maybe a way out, or around the swampy Oroville Lake area.

It takes longer than Joshua thought it would to get to the hill and what was there. Before him was a ruined home, ravaged by time and weather, but showing only signs of abuse from that and not from looters or flooding that he’d started to see in some of them. Joshua took the time to look around, finding a strange area with a single tree in the middle of the mess of rows and overgrown plants that are either half-dead or too abundant.

The garden, while overgrown, still had its rows and showed no signs of turning to Dust. When he looks around, he can see much of the orchards around him, diminished but with areas that are still good, and with bright orange and yellow fruits still ready, and despite the reminders of the flood and of deaths, he can still fix it up. He can work here.

There would never be a return to what had been, but there might be some small spots of hope, some spots of what people considered ‘real’ versus what was now the normal. All he might do is save enough to sell the fruits and anything else from here, if he could get something.

Joshua slowly walks up to the lone tree, looking up to the fruit and reaching up to grab it. From a bit away, around the house, he hears Thuy calling for him. The item is solid in his hand, and sounds oddly solid, like the same wet solid, like strange mud but inside of a red shell with yellow and orange spots. He brings it up to his nose, smelling a fruit for the first time since he’d arrived in the West.

He doesn’t know how to describe it, besides strangely…fresh. The smell is strange, almost sweet and he wonders if this is an apple.

Joshua turns as he hears Thuy yell again. He spots the other man coming up the driveway with the line full of salmon. “Wow, you found a good place. You know, they have finder-keepers law here. You found it, you can keep it.”

Joshua frowns, looking over at him curiously before Thuy said, “Fine, that’s a lie, but hey, it’s still a good place, and Daljeet said you’ve got a green thumb. They’re not going to cry if you decide to take over the place and rebuild it. Plus, near a good fishing area, I can help you out. Just split things 50/50 and we’re good.”

Joshua gave him a look as Thuy smiled, then after a longer moment, sighed. “Ok, 40/60.”

“Thuy…” Joshua chuckles, thinking on the possibility of a place that isn’t Dust, even that small spot, and laughed before, after a moment, holding up the fruit. “Is…this an apple?”

Thuy looked at him briefly before seeming to remember who he was and nodded. “Yep. Ripe one too, which is weird considering all the other stuff around here.” As Thuy listed off the fruits around them and other items, Joshua raised the apple to his mouth and bite in.


End file.
